Apple wins German ban against Motorola, can pay €25M to enforce it

Apple won a Germany-wide sales ban against several Motorola Mobility smartphones and tablets today, with a court ruling that Motorola infringed on an Apple patent covering the so-called "rubber band" effect in touchscreen devices.

The sales ban affects devices including the Motorola Milestone XT720, the Motorola Defy, the Motorola Atrix, and Motorola Xoom, reports the IDG News Service, which quotes a court spokesperson. In order to enforce the preliminary injunction, Apple can post a bond of €25 million ($32 million). The injunction would also be enforced if Motorola decided not to appeal or if it appealed and lost.

Motorola could also update the software to no longer infringe the patent. The rubber band effect occurs when a user pulls a document beyond the edges of a screen, and then releases their finger, allowing the document to bounce back into place.

The Apple-Motorola battle in Germany has been an active one, with injunctions won by both sides. In one case, Apple was forced to disable push e-mail for iCloud and MobileMe users in Germany. The Google-owned Motorola recently acknowledged that it has licensed some standards-essential 3G patents to Apple, but the battle still rages on.

UPDATE: We contacted both Apple and Motorola, and have received a response from Motorola. Motorola did not say whether it plans to appeal, but said "Based on today's outcome we believe this will have a minimal impact on our business, if any."